The Gifted School

by Bruce Holsinger

  The mood of the game changed. The United side grew frustrated, boys shouting at one another, calling for fouls that weren’t there. Wade was loving it, clapping his hands, riling the opposing parents.

  When the whistle blew for halftime, CSOC was up 3–0. Aidan had a goal, an assist, and an earned penalty kick. As the happy cluster of Crystal parents milled around, Amy Susskin came up to Beck. “Well. That was something to watch.”

  “It was,” said Beck, wary but pleased.

  She put out a manicured hand and patted his bicep. “That was really generous of Aidan, to give Will that penalty kick. He’s playing beautifully.”

  “Thanks.” Beck decided he liked the attention. Amy was divorced, he remembered. “Will looks awesome too.”

  “That’s all on Aidan,” she said. “They’re combining so well. Let’s just hope they can keep it up.”

  “Oh, I suspect they will,” Wade said, shaking his large head. “Helluva half.”

  * * *

  —

  After the game Beck folded his chair and walked to the parking lot, his thoughts a roiling mix of pride and concern. Charlie had come on fifteen minutes into the second half, subbing for Will Susskin. Amy’s son had a hat trick, but all of his goals were assisted or enabled by Aidan, who’d scored two more goals on his own. Charlie had played fine, had even tapped in the team’s final goal, though by then the game was basically over.

  Beck closed the hatch and stood with his left heel propped up against a faded FEEL THE BERN sticker on the Audi’s bumper, watching the team pack up on the far side of the field. A call came in from Azra.

  “How was the game?” his ex-wife asked.

  “Wipeout,” he said casually, not wanting to get into it. “They both played well.”

  “Good. So listen, Beck. I got a letter from the school yesterday. Aidan was identified for VisionQuest.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the gifted-and-talented program at St. Bridget’s. I mean, it’s kind of lame; it just meets for one period every six days. The weird thing is, he tested in last spring, but the school somehow misrecorded his scores, or confused them with Charlie’s. The guidance counselor caught it last week during some review of test results they’re doing for this new cooperative gifted program with the public schools. But he’s in if we want the spot.”

  “What about Charlie?”

  “Here’s the bad part.” Her voice went soft. “Apparently Aidan outscored Charlie by fifteen points.”

  “That’s batshit.”

  “I know.”

  “Then Aidan shouldn’t do VisionQuest,” Beck said. “We’ll just say no.”

  A pause. “Maybe we should leave it up to him?”

  “Joint custody, remember? It’s a liberal democracy. One person, one vote.”

  “Why would you be opposed to this? Is it the exclusivity?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Beck, you have a trust fund. You went to Bennington, for god’s sake. You come from one of the most elite—”

  “Apples and oranges.”

  “What?”

  “Look, I remember the gifted program from elementary school. They called them the Futura kids.” He turned to face Pike’s Peak. It was all coming back; something about the word gifted. “Probably twenty or twenty-five kids out of the entire school population were in the program. There was this whole separate room off the cafeteria, these big windows. At eleven-fifteen the announcement would come over the PA. Futura kids, report to the Glass Room. You wouldn’t see them again until recess, when they’d mingle with the rabble. Futura kids got to skip out of the boring classes, miss gym. In fifth grade they went to New York for an entire week.”

  “But not poor Beck.”

  “What can I say? I never tested in. But I can still give you a list of every kid in that goddamn room.”

  She laughed.

  “What?” Beck said, smiling.

  “The things I can still learn about you after all these years. You never told me that story.”

  “It’s one of my great shames, to be locked forever outside the Glass Room.”

  “Well, this isn’t about you, okay? It’s about Aidan, and I think he might really like it. Besides, it only meets three times a month or something. It’s not like it matters all that much.”

  “Hmm,” Beck said, noncommittal. He looked out over the pitch, noted a new slump in Charlie’s shoulders as he trudged along the end line alone, kicking up spits of turf.

  During their marriage Azra and Beck had always been on the same page about the twins. No stressing about milestones, no overinvestment in grades and achievements. Azra was a laid-back mom with a Colorado mellow that set her miles apart from her high-strung friends Samantha and Rose, with their Insta-worthy daughters and their horseback riding on Sunday, violin on Monday, ballet on Tuesday. Then there was Lauren, the worst of them, smugly obsessed with the brilliance of her daughter, and later, when that went south, with the genius of her son. Azra and Beck’s only big parenting disagreements had come since the divorce, and they’d all been about sports. Azra hadn’t wanted the boys to switch to travel soccer just before third grade. They were too young for that level of competition, she’d argued. Plus, all that time in the car?

  Now Beck felt vindicated for pushing it. Find your child’s passion, all the parenting propaganda said, and man, had they ever. Soccer was the first activity that had galvanized the twins, brought out their fire. With three-plus years of elite play under their belts his guys had emerged as stars, with a real feel for the game.

  Which is why this thing with Charlie was gnawing at him right now.

  “Earth to Beck,” Azra chirped.

  “I’m here.”

  “They’re fraternal twins, but they’re different people, Beck. You know?” She sniffed and he thought of her aquiline nose, the smooth contours of her face. “If Aidan has some gifts that Charlie doesn’t, then he needs to explore them independently. And vice versa.”

  “Isn’t every kid at St. Bridget’s gifted? The school costs fifty grand a year.”

  “Hey, it’s your money, Beck.”

  It certainly fucking is. A lot of it too, and the tuition was killing him. Just last week Beck had made some discreet inquiries about pulling them out at midyear, figuring he could save twenty thou or so, because he kind of needed the cash right about now. No dice.

  “Why don’t you talk to Aidan about it tonight,” he said. “I should have them at your place by five, five-thirty.”

  “Thanks, Beck.”

  “You got it, babe.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Sorry, I forget.”

  “No you don’t.”

  He grinned fondly against the phone as his ex-wife disconnected.

  I forget. He did forget, more and more these days. No, Beck, it’s not early dementia, his doc assured him. Just work stress, twin boys, a new baby killing your sleep, a financial crunch. The world piling on.

  Typical early midlife stuff, the doctor had said. Nothing fatal.

  SEVEN

  BECK

  South of Castle Rock, Beck watched in the mirror as Aidan’s eyes fluttered and closed and Charlie stared out at the lonely butte coming up on the right. The boys rode in postgame silence, no earbuds. The interstate rumbled below.

  “So what was that all about?” Beck asked. His first words to Charlie since leaving the soccer complex.

  “What?” Charlie jutted out his chin.

  “The—you know. Not starting.”

  “I don’t even care.”

  Beck licked his lips. A few moments passed. “Coach say anything to you about playing time? Because it was a big change.”

  Charlie sighed loudly. “Coach wanted to try something different, is all. He said I take over on the pitch, and it makes our game
flat.”

  “Oh.”

  “He says the team ‘defers to me too much.’” Air-quoting now. “He says I need to ‘see the field’ better. ‘Like your brother.’”

  Beck winced. “He said that?”

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Hey!” Beck said, but Charlie ignored him.

  Beck let it go, figuring his son had good reason to use that kind of language right now. Besides, he’d read somewhere that cussing was a sign of intelligence in the young. Soon Charlie joined his brother in slumber.

  * * *

  —

  New Urbanism. That’s what they called the architectural style dominating the conjoined cul-de-sacs in North Crystal. Identical houses spaced closely and painted in pastel hues, little picket fences out front: an atrocity to his designer’s eye. But Sonja had loved the place, figuring it’d be perfect for all the kids she planned to have, so Beck had squeezed a down payment out the ass of his dwindling trust fund, and here they were.

  Beck pulled the Audi into the driveway and reached into the door compartment for his wallet. His fingers grazed against a piece of paper, and that’s when he remembered.

  “Goddamnit,” he hissed, startling the twins. Even after an eighty-mile nap in the car they woke up like hibernating cubs, slow, grouchy, starving. “Sorry, guys, just— Go on inside, okay? Tell Sonja I’ll be a sec.”

  Wordlessly they slid their doors open, grabbed their soccer bags from the trunk, and staggered along the front walk.

  Beck whacked his skull back against the headrest three times.

  Garbage disposal.

  The current one was broken. A bunch of old food was collected in the works, stinking up the kitchen. Beck had promised Sonja that he’d replace it himself rather than call a plumber. He’d found a YouTube video laying out the whole procedure from start to finish, and figured he’d save a few hundred bucks while steeped in the soul-nurturing virtues of DIY. He’d been putting the repair off for weeks, but Sonja had made him swear on his bones that he’d take care of it that weekend. The plan had been to grab a new disposal at Home Depot during warm-ups that morning—but the whole business with Charlie had made him forget.

  It’s just a garbage disposal, he told himself. No catastrophe here. But these days it was the little things that niggled. Charlie’s playing time, a few extra pounds, a forgotten errand. That new and worsening wrinkle in his financial plan.

  Worms, chewing through his brain.

  He lingered in the car, palms moist against the wheel.

  * * *

  —

  In the master bedroom Sonja was nursing Roy. Her yellow mess of hair cupped the baby like an oyster shell, and she had a look of gorgeous bliss on her round face, that charge of oxytocin through her veins. Beck sat on the edge of the bed and dropped a hand on his second wife’s knee.

  “Did you get it?” she asked.

  “You know, babe, I was having some second thoughts.”

  “Second thoughts, Beck?” Her pouty frown. “About a garbage disposal?”

  “I’m in Home Depot this morning down in the Springs, looking over the units. Then this guy walks past wheeling one of those big compost bins on a utility cart. And I got to thinking. What if we composted, you know? Set one up in the side yard, have a bucket in the kitchen?”

  She stared at him. He swallowed.

  “What?”

  “You did not go to Home Depot, Beck.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “You are lying,” Sonja said, eyes closed as she leaned back against the headboard. “I tracked you on Find My iPhone, and you were at the soccer fields the whole time. You are a liar. I will take Roy and raise him on my own back in Salzburg. It will be easy to find a new husband there. A man who is not afraid to change diapers. A man who knows how to fix a drain.”

  “Come on, babe, don’t do me like that.” Beck reached for her soft arms, but she threw up her chin and turned away, shielding Roy from him.

  Sonja was so much more a wounded bird than Azra, who’d liked to fight dirty, and always won. Lately, though, Sonja had started to adopt his ex-wife’s tactics, going after his basic competencies as a father and a man. It all felt a little too familiar. It panicked him.

  Because there were certain things Azra had just never gotten about Beck. The importance of his work at the design firm, his need for spare time at home to flesh out his business plan, to manage the complexities of the family finances. Even back then, when things were less rocky in the dollars-and-debt department, working through it all had required a lot of time on the phone and the internet, nine hours of sleep a night, head space free of clutter.

  After the divorce Beck had struggled mightily to understand where things went wrong, and he’d never quite come to grips with what was missing from his first marriage. Maybe he’d needed a softer touch, a more compliant type, without Azra’s probing intricacies and all her critiques of his sleep schedule, his laissez-faire parenting style, the habits he maintained to stay young and sharp.

  So when he settled down with Sonja, he thought he’d won some kind of spousal lottery, a twentysomething life raft floating him away from the churning shoals of his marriage. Suddenly he had a hot young au pair who was great with the twins, a willing partner in mind-blowing carnality, already intimately familiar with the lifestyle Beck preferred to maintain. Unlike Azra she’d never given him crap about spending from his trust fund when he wanted a new mountain bike, a new guitar to shred, a new kayak.

  In fact she looked up to him, Beck could tell. It felt awesome.

  So when it was just the two of them, before Roy came along, Beck’s days had been blissful. Work at home in the morning, maybe score a nooner with Sonja, then bike down to the office for a few client consultations. Even when Sonja got pregnant, he’d figured his latest spawn would bob gently into the flow of the good life.

  Then the baby dropped. And sure, those early weeks were a chaotic blur and he’d helped out some. A lot, actually.

  But then, to Beck’s increasingly unpleasant surprise, his new wife had started demanding things.

  Maybe Beck could buy the groceries and do the cooking this week.

  Maybe Beck could make the lunches and drive the twins to school.

  Maybe Beck could unload the dishwasher and keep the bathrooms clean.

  But, hon, you’re not working right now, he’d wheedle. I take them to most of their soccer practices and all their games. Plus, I’ve got three trade shows coming up—

  You booked three trade shows right after our due date?

  Okay, not the smoothest move. But now they had Tessa coming three afternoons a week. She charged fifteen bucks an hour.

  Look at us. We have a nanny for the nanny.

  (Beck had never expressed this sentiment out loud. But damn, it seemed like a shitload of childcare, a lot of spare time for a young stay-at-home mom.)

  He grabbed his wife’s feet and started to rub. He had his own tactics for smoothing things. Eventually she turned back around and presented him with Roy’s warm, kicking little body, like some kind of primitive tribal gift to the chieftain.

  “Take him,” she said. “Just hold him for a while.”

  Roy clung to his father as Sonja pushed off the bed and left the room. Beck nuzzled the boy’s cute head. Peach fuzz feathered his lips as his nose gathered scent: breast-warmed scalp, the milk-sweet tang of Sonja.

  This is what it’s all about, Beck thought as he inhaled again; man and cub, this animal bond. He swayed on the bed, humming wordless nothings to his third and tiniest son.

  EIGHT

  XANDER

  Mr. Aker would never hurt him again. He’d try to. He’d use his batteries and his pins. He’d use his forks and his skewers. But the guy was a woodpusher and he knew it and he knew Xander knew it.

  There was only one thing Mr. Aker co
uld do right now to hurt him. One thing: La Bourdonnais–McDonnell 1834.

  He could go

  BxP

  PxB

  B-B4

  K-B2

  RxPch

  R-B7ch

  R-N7

  PxN

  and then Xander would maybe go

  P-QN4

  BxN

  N−Q5

  NxPch

  NxR(Q7)

  K−B3

  K−N3

  N(Q7)xB

  RxP

  but he wouldn’t see it. Even Xander had barely seen it a minute ago. If Mr. Aker had known he had that one infinitesimal chance—

  Nope. Instead Mr. Aker moved queen’s bishop to d4.

  Predictably.

  Xander scribbled a few observations in his notebook, then made his final move. He held out his hand for Mr. Aker to shake.

  “Fat chance,” said Mr. Aker. “I’ve still got both rooks and half my pawns. You think you’ve got me—”

  “Look again, Mr. Aker. Look at my knights.”

  Mr. Aker tilted his head to the side, staring at Xander’s knights. Then he shook Xander’s hand, conceding the game. “What am I now, sixty and one?”

  “Sixty-three and one, actually,” Xander said. “Would you like to play again?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  Xander packed his cut-glass chess pieces neatly into their appropriate slots, remembering the one time Mr. Aker had ever beaten him, two years ago.

  He thought about that game a lot, even now, the unpredictable set of moves his teacher had made after Xander castled. It was an odd flash of brilliance from such a mediocre player. Totally against Mr. Aker’s usual tendencies toward self-preservation and conservative defenses.

  But then again Mr. Aker wasn’t a rook or a knight. He was a human, and humans weren’t always consistent and predictable like chess pieces. When Xander looked at the figures on a board, he knew exactly what they were capable of. Sometimes he even felt as if he knew what his pieces were thinking while they were arrayed across the board. As if he were inside their little dead heads and gaming out his plans into a near future bursting with possibilities only Xander could see.